I publicly betrayed her and hurt her with unkind words. And I felt smaller, not larger as I had expected. I shrank before the eyes of my classmates, and my soul shriveled like an over-dried fig.

In that moment, I found something I had missed, that became my greatest friendship: Empathy. Without Vanity, I might have never found Empathy.

bad meaning…in the way people believe that if everything is vanity…. why we should keep fight….why we should keep live….

good meaning….if everything is vanity….we all must change the world…to put ourselves away from being and acting selfish and fight for our highest purpose…

Since her death I have suffered severely from an eating disorder.

She was in her 80′s and I am just turned 20.

Possibly: Vanity is a tool for self-esteem that I have not yet learnt to use. A tool is manipulated by the user.

Our bodies are temples and beauty can be a sign of health. Vanity motivates us to be beautiful but must be used wisely and in connection with the spirit.

If you consider that there is no – or at the most – lukewarm spirituality within quite a large population, the actual need to look good for others – vanity – can enslave us. The reason being, when the soul is neglected, we tend to increase our efforts to make our external appearance more presentable because we feel ugly inside. Vanity, if not because of concupiscence, will serve as the taskmaster to look well externally so as to avoid appearing poor internally. Refusing or through ignorance, to see that we must take care of the soul first, vanity will then enslave us.

Does this mean people striving to become holy out of love of God will stink and look poorly? No. The reason being is that when you FIRST take care of the soul, it’s like the base of making everything else well. If a flower bulb is planted in poor soil, then it will never flower as it was created to flower. No matter how much you water it, try to prune it, or treat it externally, the roots of the flower are starving. You have to feed the flower at the root level – take care of that which makes the soil poor where the flower is planted.

Looking well should radiate outward with the source of beauty being the soul. Properly taking care of our soul, prioritizing our effort to be pleasing to God, by coming to know, love, and serve Him, will always spawn the fruit of looking well externally to others and properly love others. In this way, vanity does not even come into question.

So as with everything, we must fix things at the core level. Otherwise, it’s like applying a bandaid without treating the infection.

May the Peace and Love of Christ be with you all,
Tim

What a hazard! Yesterday, I wanted to write you an email, to ask you for your opinion. But I thought it would be sensless, because you receive so many emails per day, that you surely wouldn’t read it personally. By accident (I was googling for something else!) I clicked on your site again today. How surprised I was, when I saw, that you are looking for our opinions! First I couldn’t believe, I thought it’s an old video. I would be very glad, if maybe I could help you in a way, by telling you, what I think about vanity. You gave me so much with your great books, I would like to give you something back, if I can.

In my opinion nothing is just good or bad. Things, that seems to be hundred percent good, have also something bad in it (and if it’s just a half percent). The same I think for things that seems to be hundred percent bad. Everything has advantages and disadvantages. Really bad are just things, that persons are practicing in an excessively way. The art of living is, to avoid exorbitance. Everywhere. A glass of wine is good for the health. Three bottles are poison for the body.

But first of all I want to define the meaning of vanity, how I understand it. Every person has an other definition of a word. That’s why so many misunderstandings are happening every day.

My understanding of a vain person is: Somebody, who is taking care of hisself inside and/or outside and who is neat, in a way, that will be noticed by other people. If other people wouldn’t notice it, they couldn’t say, that somebody is vain. The person would be standart. A vain person is neat. Everything is perfect, the nails are well-manicured, the hair-do is perfect, the clothes are, too. They know they are neat, and they show that they know it. For me vanity is a behavior. Beeing neat is a state. You can be neat, because you love yourself and your body, and you’re tending yourself because of you. When somebody starts to be neat because of the others, or somebody is tending hisself to be better than the others and to stand out from the crowd, that would be vanity in my eyes. You can recognize and distinguish people who love theirselves or who want to get attention from the others, if you watch enough carefully. But still vanity don’t has to be bad. It can help you on. It has not to be bad, if somebody wants to be different. Or nicer dressed. Or better. But nobody should think he’s better in a human meaning. That he’s more worth, when he’s neat, than somebody who’s not neat.

I think, the problem is, that the word “vanity” has a bad touch. Thats because of history and religious overdelivery, and because of the behavior of the most vain people. Vanitiy is not far from arrogance. It’s like always a question of dosage and of the point of view. If you are too vain, you could start to thing, that you are better than the others. Because you feel better, when you look good. When you look good and neat you have more self-confidence. This self-confidence could, if it becomes too extreme, change into arrogance.

I think, vanity can be positive or negative. It depends on the defintion of the word. Maybe it would also help to ask people about their understanding and definition of vanity. That differences give a lot to discuss!

I hope, I didn’t bore you all. If I could help you in some way I would be really very happy. I’m so sorry for my bad english. I hope, that I didn’t wrote something, that nobody understood! J If so, please let me know. This for the moment, if something new should come to my mind, I’ll let you know.

Kind regards,
Olga

In our solar plexus our ego/pride/vanity pulses, and we are sternly cautioned against taking it seriously (atleast, we are told, it is wise to be considered about that which is powerful). In the same place, at a deeper level is the Spirit of Who We Are – the original impulse of why we came to be here, now. This is our urge to action and life.

It seems to me that when our Spirit pulses from this deep place of connection it activates our ego or vanity (because it comes from the same place) and so we say to Spirit: No. I cant do that, or Arent I super?

Either way it is a trivialisation of the real impulse to be amazing, just the way we are meant to be. We are afraid of our power and so we make it into a sin and then waste precious time wrestling forever with ourselves between the ego and Spirit.

Be proud, claim your vanity – you are beautiful and wonderful and absolutely gorgeous. And this amazingness that is you is not sperated into good and bad. You are wonderful because you are and that is why you are here. Now, get on with your purpose and live your life!